


Sleeping Beauty

by freudensteins_monster



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, Fluff, Sharing a Bed, Sleep Deprivation, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-03
Updated: 2016-12-03
Packaged: 2018-09-06 04:26:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8734822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/freudensteins_monster/pseuds/freudensteins_monster
Summary: Darcy's exhausted, FRIDAY's been programmed to be troll, and somehow Darcy ends up sleeping in her soulmates bed.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Another WIP I wanted to get rid of as it was mostly finished. All I needed was a few lines of dialogue to tie things together... and I somehow ended up adding thousand odd words. :s

_“Miss Lewis, you need to wake up.”_

Growing up Darcy wasn’t sure what to make of her soul mark. It wasn’t completely unremarkable, like “Hello,” so there wasn’t much chance of a false positive, but it was odd. She knew logically that her soulmate would not know her, but the use of “Miss Lewis” made it seem too formal and gave her the heebie-jeebies. For years Darcy had feared that her soulmate might have been a school teacher or a librarian. And after one eventful but impossible to remember night in college she added ‘cop’ to her list of potential soulmate professions. A few months later her mother discovered “Grey’s Anatomy” and supplied Darcy with another alternative.

“He’s going to be a doctor,” Darcy rolled her eyes at the gleeful tone in her mother’s voice. “You’re probably going to be in a coma and he’s going to treating you.”

Darcy had ended the call with a shake of her head and jogged across campus to her next class, bemused by the fact that her mother was less concerned about what would cause her daughter to be in a coma in the first place than how much money her theoretical soulmate would be making.

Soon after Darcy got an internship with an astrophysicist, and as more and more weird shit began happening around her, Darcy feared her mother’s theory might be true.

** *** **

After, well, _everything,_ Jane had somewhat greedily accepted the offer of a shiny new lab in Avengers Tower, and Darcy hadn’t hesitated in inviting herself along. She had spent those first few days helping Jane get settled, but science called to her boss-slash-friend like a siren and Darcy ended up doing most of the unpacking by herself. As the days passed Darcy became acquainted with some of the other scientists on their floor and realised they were all about as capable of looking after themselves as Jane was. Before the month was out Darcy had become their unofficial mom, making sure the scientists were kept caffeinated and fed, and tried to get them to get some sleep on occasion. A week after expanding her scientist wrangling orbit to include Tony Stark he had made it official with a pay check to match.

Darcy had learnt early on in her internship with Jane that science never slept, but after the third month in her newfound role as Lab Manager she really wished it did. In those first few months she had been shaken awake by no less than seven scientists, two janitors, and one overly familiar robot. Every time she rubbed the sleep from her eyes after crashing in some random section of the labs, her thoughts strayed to her soul mark but her words still remained unsaid.

One Thursday night, after over a week of little-to-no sleep, Darcy had had enough. She called “quitting time” at five o’clock on the dot and spent the next three hours kicking scientists out of their labs and locking the floor down. It was a further two hours after that before Darcy finally got one of her most difficult charges (the one who signed her pay cheques – the other one was having a dirty weekend in Asgard) to take a break, dragging him to bed after a 36 hour science bender. It had taken the confiscation of all caffeinated and alcoholic beverages from his workshop, and arming Dum-E with a fire extinguisher and a bag of glitter, before Tony relented.

After dropping off the billionaire to his grateful fiancée Darcy stumbled back to the private elevator, but due to severe sleep deprivation, and FRIDAY having been programmed to be an utter troll to her whenever she annoyed Tony, Darcy wound up exiting on the wrong floor, not noticing it until she was completely lost.

“FRIDAY,” Darcy whined, leaning against the wall to keep her upright. “I need a bed, right now.”

To her left a door clicked open and Darcy fell inside. The seemingly unoccupied room had a similar layout to her own and Darcy shuffled towards the bedroom, forcing herself to take off her boots, jeans, glasses, and bra before slipping between the cool bedsheets. She was snoring within seconds.

** *** **

Darcy could have slept for a hundred years, if only the voices in the back of her mind would kindly SHUT UP. Consciousness loomed and Darcy thought she heard a man arguing in hushed but urgent tones with the Irish-accented AI and then felt a firm hand wrap around her shoulder.

“Miss Lewis… you need to wake up.”

Darcy groaned and shook off the interloper, “I’m not getting out of this bed for all the coffee in the world.”

A loud metallic thunk jolted Darcy back to the waking world. With bleary eyes she rolled over and glared down at the source of the sound, finding a rather patriotic looking frisbee of the floor next to a pair of dirty red boots. With legs in them. She glanced up.

“Captain America? What are you doing here?” she mumbled, half convinced she was dreaming.

“It’s my room,” he muttered numbly, staring at Darcy as though she was a bomb set to explode. “You said my words.”

“What?” Darcy’s brow crinkled as she made a half assed attempt to sit up. “Wait… What did you say to me?”

“I said you needed to wake up.”

“Did you say ‘Darcy, you need to wake up’, or ‘Miss Lewis, you need to wake up’?”

“Miss Lewis…”

“Wow, okay. Yeah, those are my words,” Darcy mused drowsily, running a hand through her dishevelled hair. She cringed as she snagged a knot, wondering why it hadn’t bothered her before now that her soulmate was going to see her at her least glamourous. She glanced back at Captain America – _really Universe? –_ and found him looking a little worse for wear. “Soulmate, huh? Okay, well, that’s really amazing and all, but you look like you’ve been through ringer, and I’ve spent the last two weeks getting no more than four hours of sleep a night. So how about we table the “oh my god, I finally found you” talk until we’re both feeling up to it?”

Steve’s mouth opened and shut a few times, arguing with himself about the best course of action, before agreeing with a frustrated sigh and locking himself in his bathroom. Shower, sleep, food, and then he might be ready to face his soulmate.

Except… where was he supposed to sleep? Steve wondered as he exited the bathroom wearing long pyjama pants and a white shirt. He watched Miss Lewis – Darcy – _his soulmate_ – snoring softly and his shoulders slumped in defeat. He was really looking forward to sleeping in his own bed after the hellish mission he’d been on.

“I’m not stopping you,” Darcy mumbled.

“What?” Steve flinched, not realising he’d said that last part aloud. He watched as she rolled over to one side of the bed and pulled the blankets back on the other.

“Go to sleep, Captain America.”

“Steve,” he corrected.

“Go to sleep, Steve,” she repeated, already drifting off.

Steve fidgeted on the spot for a full minute before exhaustion and an overwhelming desire not to sleep on his own couch pushed him forward. He lowered himself slowly onto the mattress, careful not to disturb his sleeping soulmate.

 _Soulmate_ , Steve thought incredulously as he lay ramrod straight beside her. His words were unique, but strange, and he’d never really had a good theory as to how he would meet his soulmate. His mother had tried not to think of more scandalous interpretations and suggested that maybe Steve would be working in the hospital with her and be trying to rouse a doctor in the on call room. Or perhaps he’d work in a boarding house or a hotel. Bucky had no such compunctions and had jokingly suggested that maybe Steve’s soulmate would turn out to be one of his dates who Steve would be trying to shoo out their shared apartment the morning after. Steve had punched the jerk for that one, right in the kisser. Later on Steve thought it might have been one of the USO girls he was always helping the stage show manager wrangle. Or maybe even a soldier under his command. But the more time he spent with Peggy the more he thought that maybe his words didn’t really matter.

After the ice he didn’t spare his soulmate much thought, but every now and then whilst out on a long mission he’d have to wake a dosing teammate and he’d feel an ache where his words were. He’d rub his arm self-consciously and promptly push the thought of his soulmate to the back of mind and get back to the mission.

He’d never ever thought meeting his soulmate would be simple as finding her in his bed. He chuckled to himself at the absurdity of it before rolling over and mirroring his soulmates sleeping position, focusing on the soft rhythm of her breathing until he drifted off to sleep.

** *** **

Darcy groaned as light flooded the bedroom, rolling away from the offending windows, freezing as an arm tightened around her waist. It took a few seconds for her to convince herself to open her eyes but when she did saw Captain America smiling at her.

“Hi,” he murmured groggily.

“Hi,” Darcy replied. “So… soulmates.”

“It would appear so.”

“It’s funny… when I was in my - very brief - princess phase, I always imagined you’d kiss me awake like in the fairy tales.”

“I still could,” Steve smirked. “If you’d like.”

“Oh, well I don’t know. You’re not wearing a suit of armor and I’m… not wearing much at all. Shit!” she squealed, rolling away from Steve and taking half the blankets with her.

“Darcy,” Steve called, trying to follow her as she scrambled about his room picking up her abandoned clothes. “Darcy, it’s fine.”

“It’s not fine,” she panicked. “I can’t believe I met my soulmate like this - I’m a mess. I’m a half-naked mess! I’ve been wearing this shirt for three days because I haven’t had a chance to do laundry, and I can’t remember the last time I washed my hair. And, oh god, when did I last brush my teeth?”

“Darcy,” Steve couldn’t help but laugh as his soulmate wielded a shoe at him when he tried to move closer. “None of that matters. You’re still… You’re still perfect.” Darcy blushed. “How about this?” he said, backing away towards the door. “You go have a shower, help yourself to whatever you need – you can grab one of my shirts to wear – and then you can join me in the kitchen. I’ll make some coffee, maybe some pancakes, and we can have that “oh my god, I finally found you” talk you mentioned last night.”

Darcy fidgeted, the blankets swishing around her as she contemplated his offer.

“Will there be bacon?”

“I could definitely cook some bacon,” he smiled.

“Then I think that sounds great,” she smiled back, heading for the bathroom. Steve was almost out of the bedroom when Darcy popped her head back out. “Hey, Steve?”

“Yeah?”

“You’re kind of perfect too,” she blushed before closing the door.

Steve couldn’t stop smiling and did a literal jump for joy over the couch. He’d just put the coffee on and started pulling out ingredients for pancakes when FRIDAY announced an incoming call.

“Mornin’ Buck.”

“You wanna tell me where you’re lazy ass is, punk? Specifically why it isn’t doing laps of the park with me and Wilson? You know I hate listening to him whine about being so damn slow.”

“Hey man, shut the hell up,” an angry, out of breath voice yelled in the background.

“So what’s the deal, Stevie? Since when do you sleep in? You didn’t lie to me about getting hurt, did you?” he oldest friend practically growled.

“No. No, Bucky. It’s nothing like that. I, uh…”

“Spit it out, Rogers.”

“I met my soulmate.”

Steve could swear he could the screech of shoes on pavement and the sound of bodies colliding.

“You wanna repeat that for us?” Bucky asked, having switched his phone to speaker.

“I met my soulmate.”

“Ha!” Sam whooped.

“Finally,” Bucky muttered and Steve could hear him grinning through the phone. “Where’d you meet ‘em?”

“Uh… she was in my bed,” Steve blushed, bracing for the loud and animated reaction that was sure to follow.

“What? Are you kidding me?” Bucky demanded over Sam’s hysterics.

“You lucky son of a bitch,” Sam laughed.

“Yeah, yeah,” Steve muttered though he couldn’t stop smiling. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to make my soulmate some breakfast,” he said, hanging up before they could comment. “FRIDAY?”

“Yes, Captain?”

“Can you engage privacy mode on the whole floor, or lock it down? I want to keep Bucky and Sam out as long as possible.”

“I’ll see what I can do, Captain. But Sergeant Barnes has a habit of getting around the boss’s security.”

“I know, but try any way.”

“Of course, Captain.”

 ** *** **

Steve had just started plating some pancakes when Darcy emerged from the bedroom wearing her jeans and one of his ARMY tshirts, her damp hair tied in a bun.

“Would you look at that,” Steve smiled. “Still perfect.”

“Shut up,” Darcy blushed, gratefully accepting a mug of steaming coffee.

They talked while they ate, and grew more comfortable with each other as they talked, until FRIDAY interrupted them.

“I’m sorry, Captain, but Sergeant Barnes and Senior Airman Wilson have breached the 64th floor and are making their way up fast. My security protocols won’t keep them out for much longer.”

“Thanks for trying, FRIDAY,” Steve sighed.

“What’s going on?” Darcy asked, stealing another piece of bacon.

“My so called friends are on their way up to make fun of me for finding you in my bed. Under the pretence of meeting you, of course.”

“Oh. How do you want me to play it?”

“Hmm?”

“Do you want to go with the truth? Do you want me to tell them I was waiting for you wearing nothing but a smile? Something in between?”

“As sweet as it is for you to offer,” he grinned. “I’d much rather it if they just left us alone for the time being. I was really enjoying my breakfast,” he said, gazing adoringly at his breakfast companion.

“That settles it then,” Darcy smirked. “What my soulmate wants, my soulmate gets. Hey FRIDAY,” she called to the ceiling before Steve could question her. “Are we back on speaking terms?”

“For now, Miss Lewis.”

“Great. Can you tell me if Clint put traps in the vents on Steve’s floor?”

“I’m afraid I can’t divulge that information, Miss Lewis.”

“Which is code for ‘yes’,” she explained to Steve. “Any chance you could set the traps off, say when Barnes and Wilson walk under them?”

“I could, but I don’t think I should as it would cause unnecessary harm to tower residents. Not to mention the mess. You know how the boss feels about messes he doesn’t make himself.”

“Do it anyway. Intern Override: Suck It Tin Man.”

“Override accepted. Barnes and Wilson have breached the 68th floor,” the AI added a few seconds later. “Setting off the first trap in 3… 2… 1…”

Darcy and Steve could barely contain their laughter as the sound of small, wet explosions echoed down the hall followed by two grown men screaming and shouting Barton’s name, before they stormed off in the opposite direction.

“There,” Darcy declared proudly. “That’ll buy us ten minutes at least. And I wouldn’t venture out into the hallway until the paint dries.”

“Can I kiss you?” Steve blurted, still in awe of his soulmate.

“Please do,” Darcy giggled, leaning over the dining table to meet him halfway.

 


End file.
